


You're a Tragedy Starting to Happen

by matan4il



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 23:54:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11474289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matan4il/pseuds/matan4il
Summary: ED has explored Aaron's insecurities. This one's about Robert's.





	You're a Tragedy Starting to Happen

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [Elbow's song Red](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHMJARPLmcg).
> 
> Unbeta'd. Any feedback appreciated, thank you!

You love him so much. That’s the problem, really. You’d split yourself open for him and you probably already have, in ten different ways that he doesn’t pick up on. He loves you too, he thinks it’s just as much, but he still doesn’t pick up on any of them. 

You have the best experiences together and he always laughs at your antics, you can make him cry like no one else can, which you hate, because you _have_ made him cry, and which you can’t help but love. But as much as he loves you, it will never be on the same level. After all, he can nullify the very reason for your existence with a single word and that imbalance, that earth shattering imbalance which you can’t change, is always going to cut you through the heart, even at your happiest of times. 

So you convince yourself that you’re not in pain. For a time it works, too. It feels so very close to not-pain that you are honestly close to forgetting the difference. Then he’ll say or do something. It’s nothing big. But it’s enough. It’s enough for you to know that he still doesn’t and won’t ever love you as much as you do him. And the internal bleeding floods you. It drowns you, though no one can see this blood, nor dress this wound. It’s all down to you whether anyone would even ever know.

And you choose to keep mum. It’s your decision, yes, but you _are_ that guy who loves him so much that you’ve never had a real option about this. Anything else will only quicken the end. So you keep it to yourself. You swallow around the pain. You smile a little wider when the hurt is at its worse.

You are broken. Probably beyond fixing. The realization is gradual, but it’s another knife twisting nonetheless when it’s finally fully present, or at least whole enough to be mentally formed with words. It’s not him that’s the problem. It’s you. He loves you normally. You love him with your last breath. You love him so much, it adds a certain finality to every single one of your breaths. That’s not normal. It’s not survivable. The weight of it will pull you down and you will not be able to make it back up and break the surface.

You start entertaining the thought. Leaving.

You don’t want to finish it off, but if it’s not healthy, if it’s downright dangerous, what possible good reason is there to stay? Then your eyes fall on the shadow of his back as he moves about the kitchen and you don’t need a reason. Not when there’s him.

So you’ll try to tough this out. Until it kills you or somehow your love will be adjusted to an acceptable measure through the constant presence of pain. Or, and this one is the worst, until the cracks in you that you can’t tape over, that make your love spill out of your heart uncontrollably, will drive him to stop loving you. In whatever way that may happen. Yeah, the worst option seems most likely. It’s not a clear scenario and yet, it feels so sure. Because there certainly is pain and fear and desperate need that grip you whenever you stare head on at the gap between you. And those will eventually wrestle the love out of him, how can there be any other outcome? You will have lost even what you have right now. What is not enough, because it is not equal, but you will lose even that and you will have no one to blame but yourself. It’s how it has to go and you allow yourself one more brief second of wondering whether you would drive him crazy with your constant need for him or self-sabotage and make it impossible for him to love you even to the degree that he does. Then you close your eyes. You count to three. You stay.


End file.
